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DEFENCE OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT 
CONTRACTS, 

SPEECH 

/ 

HON. HENKY L. DAWES, 



OF MASSACHUSETTS, 



DELIVERED 



IN THE U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



April 25, 1862, 



^ 



v.. , 



^.NOyOA/,^ 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

BCAMUELL & CO., PllINTBUS, CONNER OF SECOND AND INDIANA AVESTJE, THIRD FLOOR. 

1862. 



^^2 



SPEECH. 



The House having under consideration reso- 
lutions heretofore reported by the Committee 
on Government Contracts — 

Mr. DAWES said: 

Mr. Speaker : I do not know that I shall 
have any disposition to say a single word in 
opposition to the amendment just submitted by 
the gentleman from Indiana. When he comes 
to know the course which this committee has 
pursued a little more fully than he seems to do 
now, he will find no occasion for oflFering it in 
the light of an admonition to them. The ab- 
stract principle I agree with entirely, and to its 
application, iHdividuallj, I have no objection. 

The evidence before the committee touching 
the second resolution has been reported to the 
House. It is proposed at this time to ask the 
attention of the House to that resolution and to 
the evidence which sustains it, and to call for 
a vote upon it. 

But, sir, the House will expect from the com- 
mittee, I doubt not— they certainly have a right 
to expect from them before they call upon the 
House to vote upon that resolution — some al- 
lusion to matters which have transpired in this 
House within the last few days. Sir, on Mon- 
day last the committee on Government con- 
tracts was for a second time in its absence 
honored with a premeditated and, as it would 
appear from the Globe, a preconcerted attack 
upon the personal character and integrity of its 
members. The committee received notice of 
this attack by the telegraph when they were 
quietly and, as they supposed, faithfully dis- 
charging the duties the House imposed upon 
them in the city of New York ; and inas 
much as the telegraph was silent upon the 
fact that it was announced to the House that 
no member of the committee was present 
during that attack, it went forth that no re- 
ply of the committee was made to it at all, 
and Ihat they were to be held as silently con- 
fessing its justice and its truth. They can 
hardly expect, and have no right to expect, the 
House to vote for the resolution if|the charges 
made against the committee on Monday last 



have any foundation in truth, and therefore it 
is that it is incumbent upon them, before ask- 
ing that vote, to say whatever they may have to 
say upon the character of these attacks. 

The House will bear the members of the 
committee out in the assertion, that although 
much time has been occupied in this House 
concerning it and its transactions, they have 
never occupied one moment of its time except 
in self-defence; they have never taken up one 
moment of the time of this House in speeches 
touching their mission or its results, and have 
only sought, when driven to it, to defend them- 
selves as well as they may. 

The nature of this second, as of the first, at- 
tack on the committee, in its absence, is such 
that it forbids their silence. That the House 
should difiPer with the committee in its conclu- 
sions, that the House should differ with the com- 
mittee in its arguments and in its method of 
proceeding, is most natural. Differences of 
that kind with committees of the House are of 
daily occurrence. They are always expected, 
and are always to be met in good temper and 
without complaint by any committee charged 
in this House with any of its duties. But at- 
tacks upon the integrity and personal character 
of members of a committee are, I am happy to 
say, somewhat nnusual in this House. Yet it 
has been the peculiar experience of this cona» 
mittee to encounter them more than once in its 
progress. 

These attacks, Mr. Speaker, have been always 
made upon the committee in its absence. So 
far as I am able to know, they resolve them- 
selves into but two charges. I ask the atten- 
tion of the House, not to any refutation of argu- 
ments or conclusions, but simply to questions 
impugning the committee's integrity of purpose 
and its fidelity to the House. They consist, I 
say, of two points. In a report of evidence 
containing more than eleven hundred printed 
pages, the diligence and scrutiny of those v/ho 
have felt it their mission to seek after the mis- 
takes of this committee have found out only two 
mistakes. The first was that which was the foun- 



4 



dation of the attack made upon it in its absence 
by the gentleman representing oce-of the Phil- 
adelphia districts, [Mr. Kellet.] It was that 
the committee had made use of a misprint in 
the testimony, for which it was not answerable, 
because not having originated with it, and in 
regard to which I showed on a former occa- 
sion two things — first, that it was entirely the 
■work of the printer, of which no member of the 
committee had the slightest knowledge ; and 
secondly, that it was immaterial, not altering 
in one particle the meaning and substance of 
the testimony in which it occurred. 

The second was made the basis of an attack 
upon' the committee last Monday. That was a 
mistake in the name of an individual. In an 
investigation running through eleven hundred 
pages, it has been the good fortune of another 
of the distinguished Representatives of Penn- 
gylvania to detect a single mistake. It so hap- 
pened that two men in this whole country had 
the same name, and that a very peculiar one — 
a foreign name — Sacchi — and that the com- 
mittee has confounded the two persons. These 
8tre the only two mistakes of fact — that of the 
printer and this one — which I have heard of 
as having been charged upon this committee. 
They have both been charged to have been 
wilfully and dishonestly made. 

Mr. MOORHEAD. I ask the gentleman 
from Massachusetts whether the mistake that 
he acknowledges now was acknowledged pub- 
licly heretofore by the committee, when it was 
required to do so ? 

Mr. DAWES. The first moment that the 
attention of the committee was called to it, that 
moment it admitted the mistake, and pointed 
out how it occurred. 

Mr. MOORHEAD. And made public repa- 
ration for having charged a man with having 
an amount of Government money in his hands, 
and admitted that to be a mistake. 

Mr. DAWES. The committee did not admit 
that it had made one particle of mistake touch- 
ing the point to which the gentleman alludes ; 
but I am not going to consume any part of my 
hour by rearguing to this Ho'use that there is 
no difference between a man saying he has in 
the hands of a third party a given sum of 
money, and his saying that it is there subject 
to his own order. The pretence that there is a 
ditfereuce is a mere quibble, beneath the com- 
inon sense of this House. 

I was about to eay that these two are the only 
accusations against the committee as yet made 



in the House. General Fremont, however, has 
made another, to which I. desire to call the at- 
tention of the committee on the conduct of the 
war, for the mere purpose of setting this com- 
mittee right. I have no purpose in bringing 
into this controversy any accusation against 
General Fremont. In the lately published state- 
ment of General Fremont, made before the com- 
mittee on the conduct of the war, he charged 
the committee on Government contracts with 
having come to St. Louis encouraging insub- 
ordination in his department ; that they cre- 
ated a public opinion there that it was their 
object to cause his removal ; that they refused 
to receive evidence offered them in explanation 
of matters inquired into by them, and suppress- 
ed testimony which had been received by them ; 
and that he would offer evidenoe to that com- 
nsitte* t» iUBtain these charges. 

I wish to ask the members of the committee 
on the conduct of the war — and I see one 
member, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. 
Odell,] in his seat — whether any evidence has 
been offered to that committee to sustain this 
charge. If it is not an improper inquiry, will 
the gentleman from New York do me the favor 
to answer it ? 

Mr. ODELL, There is no evidence of that 
character before the committee, save that given • 
by General Fremont himself in his statement, 
so far as I recollect. 

Mr. DAWES. That is all I desire to« say 
touching that matter. The charge is of a seri- 
ous character, and I know that that committee 
would have notified us of any testimony that 
had been offered to sustain it. 

I now recur to the second of these charges 
made in the House. It is of such a character, 
if the House remembers what appears in the 
Globe, that no man, having any selfrespect, 
could pass it over without asking for the evi- 
dence on which it is sustained. A gentleman 
stands up in the House and declares that he 
believes in his conscience that this committee 
has perpetrated more frauds than it has de- 
tected — that it is aljingcommittee — a scandal- 
hunting committee, expending the people's 
money and bringing disgrace on the public 
servants. The only evidence brought in sup- 
port of the charge is, what I have already sta- 
ted, that the committee has confounded two 
persons of the same name. The committee 
expected to meet all other accusations of short- 
comings on their part. They had not expected 
to meet an 'attack of this kind. I am sorry 



that the gentleman who made it [Mr. ShsTffSs] I which he had been charged for some time, 
is not now in his seat. I informed him but a | The committee have had occasion, as I have 



few moments atjo, while he was in the House, 
that I was about to call the attention of the 
House to the remarks which he made at that 
time. He felt it his duty, as I suppose, to with- 
draw from the House on business which to 
him appeared to be more pressing than to re- 
main and hear what I had to say. 

Mr. COLFAX. Will the gentleman permit 
me to say a word ? 

Mr. DAWES. Yes. 

Mr. COLFAX. The gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania desired me to 8ta,te, if his absence 
should be alluded to, that before the gentleman 
from Massachusetts had notified him of his m- 
tention to allude to hi^ speech, he had made an 
appointment with some friends from Pennsyl- 
vania, who had to leave this afternoon, and 
that he could not break his engagement. 



repeated, to encounter these charges from dif- 
ferent quarters, in this House and out of it. 
They know better than the House or the public 
can what has been the course of their pro- 
ceedings, and they have, therefore, been better 
able to appreciate these charges than the pub- 
lic or this House can, and they have' accepte<t 
them from time to time as testimonials to their 
fidelity in the doty with which they have been 
charged. 

Sir, any lawyer in threading the complicated 
labyrinths of conspiracies, deceits, and frauds, 
knows very well when he puts his finger upon 
the key to the whole. The physician, probing 
an abscess, be it ever so deep, be it ever so foul, 
is at no time at a loss to know when he touches 
the quick. It is the galled jade that winces, or 
there is no truth in England's poet. And there- 
fore the committee have been prepared for all 



Mr. DAWES. Mr. Speaker, I do not feel , , . „ 

^1 . T • 11 J r^ L • • ti,„ this, and have accepted cheertully, as a trioute 

that I am called upon, after havmg given the I ''"'°' * ^ ^' . •' ' . . 

gentleman notice, to wait for his return. The 



committee is obliged to my colleague, [Mr. 
Thomas,] prompted by that sense of justice 
which pervades his whole being, for calling 
■ the attention of the gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania on Monday last, in the midst of 
. his accusatory philippic against the committee, 
^ to the fact that no member of the committee 
was then present in the House. We are obliged 
to my colieagae for two reasons : first, because 
the Globe now shows the reason why no reply 
was then made to this serious accusation ; and 
secondly, because the subsequent course of the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania illustrated, bet- 
ter than anything I can say on this occasion, 
the motives which prompted that attack on the 
committee. While admitting the force and 
propriety of the suggestion of my colleage, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania was so charged 
with that accusation against the committee 
that he said he could not be stopped from 
making it, then and there, by any such con- 
sideration as the fact that the committee was 
absent from the- House when it was made. It 
would seeiii from the report in the Globe that 
there wl\s even a feeling of relief from all re- 
straint on the part of the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania when he came to be assured that 
all the raeinbers of the committee were absent. 
His speech leaves a conviction, certainly, on 
the minds of those who were the subjects of 
that attack, that it was' to him an opportune 
occasion on which to be delivered of that with 



to their fidelity, from time to time, this rustling 
and this fluttering, even this bitterness and ma- 
lignity, heaped upon them. It is only because 
the House and the country are ignorant of the 
hidden springs, sometimes far off, which move 
men, that they are compelled to self-defence. 

Why were we arraigned here on Monday 
last in our absence ? The occasion arose from 
no matter connected with us or with any of our 
proceedings. We had not at all arraigned any- 
body in this House. It appears from the Globe 
that the discussion arose from a resolution in- 
troduced into this"^ House by the gentleman 
from New York, [Mr. Diven] on my right, in- 
troduced without the knowledge of the com- 
mittee, and I am sure the gentleman will say, 
without any responsibility on our part ; to which 
the committee, if they had been here in the House 
at the time, would have had nothing to say. 
The gentleman from New York, actuated by 
what he felt to be a sense of duty, introduced a 
resolution here, in consequence of no action 
proposed by this committee, but it was seized 
upon as an opportunity to destroy the confi- 
dence of the House and the confidence of the 
country in this committee, and the confidence 
uf all honest men in them as individuals. 

Sir, it is known to the public that there has 
been a systematic effort to break down this 
committee. It has found its way into pamphlet 
form begotten by contractors, containing a de- 
liberate attack on the individual members of 
the committee ; and which wisdom or some 



6 



other monitor suggested would be more effect- 
ive, if, instead of seeing the light in the form 
of the pamphlet opposition of contractors, it 
could take on the form of an attack in this 
House from members of the House itself; and 
hence it is that that which was originally in- 
tended merely as a pamphlet crusade against 
this committee has acquired that additional 
strength and influence which ought to attach 
to statements made in this House by members 
upon their responsibility. 

I am not surprised to learn what was the 
efff-ct of that statement upon the House. I am 
not surprised that the House, were ready, 
almost, in the absence of the committee, to 
order their discharge from further duty when it 
had been stated that they themselves had com- 
mitted frauds, when it was stated that they 
themselves had lied, that they had squandered 
the people's money in the guise of an effort to 
save it. I only wondered that my friend from 
Pennsylvania on my left, who, I understand, 
had charge of a resolution on that occasion to 
discharge the committee from further duties, 
refrained from offering it. 

Mr. MOORHEAD. As the gentleman has 
referred to me, I wish to say that I was not 
charged with any such resolution ; but I think 
I have had reason to vote for such a resolution 
when it does come before the House. I repeat 
that I was not charged with any such i"esolu- 
tion, and do not propose to offer any. 

Mr. DAWES. I do not know as the gentle- 
man ever did draft any particular resolution, or 
that it was handed to him, or that he was wait- 
ing fur an opportune moment to offer it. I 
only know that the gentleman announced him- 
self ready to vote for such a resolution, and I 
only wonder that he did not offer and the House 
pass such a resolution. 

Mr. MOORHEAD. I understood the gentle 
man to assert that I was charged with such a 
resolution. 

Mr. DAWES. I only took the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania to be a candid man, a man 
of good judgment, with a disposition to do what 
was right. I was only alluding to the effect 
which the charge made upon the committee on 
Monday last must have had upon the gentle- 
man, and saying to the House that I did not 
wonder that gentlemen under the influences of 
such a charge were ready to offer and adopt 
such a motion as the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania now says he is ready to vote for. He sees, 
I trust, the force of my remark. It is due to the 



gentleman's candor and sensitiveness to what 
he believes to be right. I would not for a mo- 
ment believe that there is any lack of courage 
on his part to move that resolution. 

Now, sir, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
[Mr. Stevens,] in the discussion of another 
matter which had no reference to the committee, 
travelled out of that discussion to accuse the 
committee. It was thought necessary, in order 
to defeat the resolution of the gentleman from 
New York, to accuse the committee on Govern- 
ment contracts with being enemies of General 
Fremont. The committee had said nothing in 
reference to General Fremont. They had never, 
in this House or elsewhere, made any accusa- 
tion against General Fremont. 

Whether correctly or hoit, it was supposed 
that certain documents brought before the 
House, official documents, by the committee in 
their report, reflected upon General Fremont. 
And therefore the committee were charged 
with being the enemies of General Fremont, 
and that going out to St. Louis as his enenyes, 
we were seeking after cause for his removal. 
Now, I am able to say, as one who knows quite 
as much about the real sentiments and feelings 
of every member of that committee as per- 
haps any gentleman in this House, that tha 
gentleman from Pennsylvania who has made 
this accusation is entirely mistaken upon that 
point. It will be somewhat new to my con- 
stituents, who know me quite as well as the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania does, to hear at 
this late day that I am counted one of the en- 
emies of General Fremont. It will be equally 
unjust to every other member of the committee 
to make the accusation against them. I have 
importuned his special friends to warn him 
against false friends, wolves in sheep's clothing, 
who were bankrupting him in fortune and 
character. I have not been otherwise his en- 
emy. 

• The mistake into which my kind friend from 
Indiana [Mr. Colfax] has fallen, and all other 
members who have arraigned this committee 
for the method in which they have pursued 
their investigations, lies right here': they for- 
get what duties the committee were charged 
with. My friend referred, with great pride, to 
the proceedings of an investigJtting committee 
in a formA- Congress, and he held it» up as a 
pattern for us to follow. He forgets that the 
one committee was charged with investigating 
the conduct of individtials, and that the other 
committee was charged solely with investigating 



the cliaracter of. contracts; that we were to 
examine those contracts- without regard to per- 
sons, and that we had nothing to do with per- 
sona in the investigation of those contracts. 
He says we failed in our duty, because when 
we went out to St. Louis we did 'Viot invite 
General Fremont to aid us in investigations 
touching the contracts which McKinstry had 
entered into there, as quartermaster, for the 
purpose of carrying on the war. Why, sir, we 
went out there without knowing General Fre- | 
mont, or General Fremont's accusers in that j 
department. We were treated with kindness , 
and attention by both sides, and we felt it pru- 1 
dent to decline all proffers of hospitality ex- 
tended to us upon either aide, and in our in- | 
vestigations there to imitate, humbly as we i 
might, but as far as in us lay, that personifica- j 
tion of Justice which hangs in all our courts, 
and which makes her blindfold — hearing, but 
not seeing, men. We were no respecters of 
persons. We were charged with the duty of 
examiaing into contracts made, and the report 
upon which would be a matter of consideration 
for the House. 

Therefore it is that I care not for the amend- 
ment of the gentleman from Indiana, [Mr. Col 
FAX,] for it may be that it should be adopted 
as a proper course of examination when it has 
any application to the subject of it, and not 
otherwise. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania says we 
went out there as the enemies of Fremont, pur- 
suing him. And what was the awful result ? 
That when we found out a contract made there 
about horses — a contract, about which the 
quartermaster who made it said he had spent 
hours and weeks and months in trying to find, 
without any success, the man Sacchi, who made 
it — we blundered in the name. The'quarter- 
master who made this inquiry was a tried sol- 
dier of the regular army, who has, served for 
many a year in that capacity, with unquestioned 
integrity. In reference to this Sacchi, who had 
this contract. Quartermaster Turnley says — 
not the committee, though we are held respon- 
sible for what the quartermaster said : 

"It came out that Sacchi was nobodj-, a man 
of straw, living in a garret in New York, whom 
nobody knew anything about ; a m^n who was 
brought here (St. Louis) as a good person 
through whom to work. That rather recoiled 
upon Wood, who brought him to me." 

That is the language of Captain Turnley of the 
regular army, and not the language of the com- 
mittee. And yet the gentleman from Pennsyl- 



vania arraigns the committee, and says that 
there are two things, dreadful and awful — -dis- 
honest is the word used — and the result of fraud 
upon the part of the committee; for he says it 
turned out afterwards, on the affidavit of the 
man himself, that this Sacchi,- whom the witness 
said was nobody, was somebody, and did not 
live in anybody's garret in New York, but had 
given deeds and mortgages in New York — es- 
pecially mortgages — as to which he referred to 
the records. And just at this moment, as ap- 
pears by the Globe, in the midst of that most 
intense and terrific philippic of the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] against the 
committee for this mistake of theirs, rises the 
gentleman from New York, [Mr. Roscoe Conk- 
ling,] as if intending to interrupt the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania for some important commu- 
nication absolutely necessary at that point, and 
wishes the gentleman from Pennsylvania to 
give way right there. The gentleman from 
Pennsylvania gives way, and the gentleman 
from New York says \^e wishes to call the at- 
i tention of the House, in this connection, to the 
[ "star of Bethlehem" [laughter] and the "cru- 
I sade for freedom in freedom's holy land." 
[Ptenewed laughter.] But the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania was in no mood for poetry, and 
thrust aside the gentleman's sentimentality and 
eloquence. He felt, as it appears from the 
Globe, too much as the bloodhound does at the 
moment of' springing upon the throat of his 
victim, to be interrupted by poetry; and he ex- 
claims, as much as to say, "away with your 
' star of Bethlehem ' and your * crusade for free- 
dom in freedom's holy land ' " — says he does 
not care any more about that than he doe 8 
about the contract for horses, though steeped 
in fraud dark as the bottomless pit. What does 
he care if it. is fraudulent? He says, "it is 
enouf'h for me to know that he (Sacchi) was 
not the man who made the horse contract at 
all •" it is enough for me to know that I have 
detected the committee, not in any mistake 
about the fraudulent character of the contract — 
I don't care a copper about that — but in the 
great mistake of supposing that one man, bear- 
ing the same name, happened to be another 
man who bore that name ;. and then, upon the 
strength of that, rising in triumph over the 
committee he exclaims: 

" And if the committee had had an honest 
purpose to know the truth, they would have 
known that ; and yet they fill several pages ot 
their report in charging that Fremont gave this 
contract to a member of his own staff. I ask 



■ 8 



wlwrt you Avould think of the testimony of such 
a witness found lying one day? Would you be- 
liere him on the next?" 

And here, just at this point, he addresses 
some able lawyer of the House — the Glohe 
does not do him ^uSjtice here, for it does not 
state to whom he alludes — 

"You are an able lawyer, and know how much 
credit such a witness is entitled to. You know 
thiU if he is found falsifying in one case, you 
will not believe him in any." 

This is the charge, falsus in uno, falsus in 
omnibus; they make a mistake in reference to 
the individual, and that is enough for me. I 
charge thera with lying ; I charge them with 
falsehood ; and I ask some able lg.wyer in this 
House if it is not enough ? Such is substan- 
tially the language of the gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania. 

But 1 do not want to do injustice to this 
scene ; and I beg the House to let me read this 
language just as it occurred, in order that the 
whole beauty and force of this passage may be 
better seen than I can describe it. I said that 
in the midst of this accusation of the gentle- 
man from Pennsylvania, the gentleman from 
New York, whom I like always to hear, for he 
is always eloquent, always classical, sometimes 
biblical, rushes to the floor, and says : 

" Will the gentleman allow tme to make a re- 
mark just there ? 

" Mr. Stevens. Yes, sir. 

" Mr. RoscoE CoNKLiNG. This young man 
Sacchi, who is named here, is, I understand, a 
man Avho has been decorated for heroic actions 
upon the battle-fields of Italy more than once, a 
man who came here following the star of freedom 
as the shepherds fqllowed the star of Bethlehem, 
and went out into that department and joined 
Fremont's staff, not for pay, not for rank, but as 
a volunteer ; a man who came here, in the lan- 
guage of another, ' to crusade forfreedom in free- 
dom's holy land.' 

" Mr. Stevens. It is enough for me to know 
that he is not the man who made the horse con- 
tract at all." 

[ The reading of the above extract excited 
great merriment in the House.] 

The gentleman from New York will pardon 
me — for he knows that I appreciate the beauty 
of that passage as well as he does — for saying 
that that elegant passage of his in connection 
with the speech of the gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania, reminds me of what my friend from 
Missouri [Mr. Rollins] said yesterday of the 
pearl in the toad's head. [Great laughter.] 
And then the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
exclaims : " It is enough ; my soul is satisfied ; 
I have the committee by the throat ; here is a 



mistake in the name of an individual ; falsus 
in uno, falsus in omnibus ; 1 put it to the ablest 
lawyer in this House : are not the committee 
liars?" Sir, it reminds me of a lawyer who 
told me that upon a certain occasion he under- 
took, with what success he might be able, to 
defend a criminal detected in flagrante delicto, 
and, as is always the custom when men aTe so 
detected, the only defence was to set up an 
alibi. He proved the alibi with great success ; 
the man had never been on the spot, and knew 
not where the spot was where the crime had 
been committed ; and toward the close, the 
prisoner, thinking he was something of a law-' 
yer also, got up and insisted on putting in his 
view of the case, and declared to the jury that 
he could show them that the witnesses swore 
falsely when they said there were two lights in' 
the room; he. told them, as my friend from 
Pennsylvania said here, upon his conscience, 
that there was only one light in that room that 
night, and then exclaimed, triumphantly, in the 
language of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
" witnesses who can be false in one thing are 
false in all — falsus in uno, falsiis in omnibus .'" 
The difficulty was in the verdict of the jury 
more than in the theory of the defendant on 
that occasion. He may have convinced them 
that the witnesses were mistaken about the 
light, but in doing it he confessed his own 
guilt. So here these men may convince the 
House and country that the committee have 
made a mistake in a name ; but if that is all in 
this book of IJOO pages, then the stupendous 
frauds it discloses stand confessed. 

Mr. W ASHBDRNE . If my friend will give 
way for a moment, as illustrating this Sacchi 
contract, which has so much sympathy here, 
I desire to read an extract from the report of 
the Holt and Davis commission in St. Louis. 
It seems that a certain number of horses were 
really bought under that contract, amounting 
to some six or seven thousand dollars, but wjien 
the matter came to be exposed, there was no 
man who dared to come before the commission 
and make that claim. They say : 

" Though the claim was for the large sum of 
$6,500, none of the original papers were filed, 
nor did Mr. Bitting [the mau who claimed to 
own it] eve^ appear before us. It is hardly pos- 
sible tiiat he would have run the chance of los- 
ing a claim of such magnitude, unless there had 
been some urgent reason for declining to submit 
himself to such an examination, either on his 
own account, or on that of the persons from 
whom he obtained an assignment of the contract.'^' 

That is what the Holt commission say. 



Mr. DA.WES. True. But what matters it 
that the Holt commission find that the contract 
was fraudulent ? What matters it, if that com- 
mission, composed of such men as Judge David 
Davis, known to the people of my district where 
he spent his early days, as well as to the people 
of Illinois, to be just and true — of Joseph 
Holt, who, in a time not very far distant in the 
past, was one of those patriots who snatched 
thf nation itself from out of the jaws of disso- 
lution; and of Hugh Campbell, worthy to be 
their associate — what if this commission has 
sustained every position, and substantiated 
more than every finding of the committee in 
the Western Department, and has saved the 
Treasury millions of dollars ? What matters it 
that that commission was the result of the in- 
vestigations of this committee and was recom- 
mended by it ; or tliat its success has produced 
another, now in session in this city, with the 
same Holt at its head, saving, if sustained, 
other millions to. the Treasury ? What mat- 
ters all this if the committee made a mistake 
in a name ? 

Mr. KELLEY. I would ask the gentleman 
from Illinois whether the contract to which 
that passage refers was a contract made by a 
member of General Fremont's staff? For that 
is the question in issue now. Does that para- 
graph refer to a contract made by a member of 
General Fremont's staff? 

Mr. DAWES. I will dispose of that ques- 
tion. It refers to a contract drafted by Captain 
Turnley, of the regular army, by the direction 
of J. C. Woods, upon General Fremont's staff, 
silting in General Fremont's office, or else 
Captain Turnley is mistaken. That is all. My 
friend from Indiana [Mr. Shanks] suggests, 
which I believe is true, that Woods was direct- 
ed to make it by Fremont himself. 

Mr. SHANKS. Captain Turnley was direct- 
ed to do it. 

Mr. DAWES. I have studied, in order to 
avoid other complications in this matter, not 
to mention Fremont's name, or anything 
that reflects upon him, during this discussion. 
Whatever there may be in that matter, the com- 
mittee on Government contracts are on trial at 
this time, and not Genera* Fremont or any of 
his party. 

Mr. KELLEY. Will the gentleman yield to 
me for a single question ? 

Mr. DAWES. If the House will let me have 
my time, I have no objection. 
Mr. KELLEY. I simply want to ask 



whether Auguste Sacchi, of GeaeraJ Fremont's 
staff, had part or lot in the contract to which 
that paragraph relates ? He has a character 
as well as other men. 

Mr. DAWES. Well, my dear sir, do be pa- 
tient with me, and hear me till I get to the end, 
I was about to say that the committee are on 
trial on a charge ot dishonesty for making a 
mistake and confounding the Sacchi who made 
the contract with this Sacchi upon General 
Fremont's staff. The gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania [Mr. Stevens,] who took command 
of the attack on Monday — and in which attack 
my friend from the Philadelphia district acted 
only as a subaltern — charged the committee, 
upon that occasion, with occupying several pa- 
ges of their report in attempting to prove that 
that Sacchi was the same Sacchi who was upon 
General Fremont's staff, when every word in 
the report touching that point is contained in 
three lines, which I have before me, and which 
I will read : 

" It will hardly be believed that the name of 
this same Sacchi appears in the newspapers as 
being on the staff of General Fremout, at Spring- 
field, with the rank of captain." ;, 

That is all — just three lines. The committee 
supposing that the name referred to the same 
individual, called attention to the fact that the 
newspapers contained that name. And yet the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania felt justified in 
saying that we devoted several pages of our 
report to an endeavor to prove that fact ! Now, 
it is absolutely necessary to convict the gentle- 
man from Pennsylvania of utter ignorance of 
what he was. talking about, in order to acquit 
him of an intentional misrepresentation of the 
committee. 

Mr. KELLEY made a remark which was in- 
audible at the reporters' desk. 

Mr. DAWES. As the gentleman seems de- 
sirous of taking part in this controversy, I will 
just say to him that when he attacked the com- 
mittee in its absence several weeks since, we 
accepted his apology that he did it inadvert- 
ently, although the Globe shows that his atten- 
tion was called to the fact, when he rose to 
make that attack, that the committee were 
absent from the House ; and the gentleman re- 
turned to the attack the first time he found the 
committee again absent from the House. This 
is the only remark I desire to make in this 
connection touching his disposition to assault 
the committee in its absence. If the final re- 
port of the committee does not revea^ why the 



10 



gentleman is desirous of undermining tbe con- 
fidence of the House in the committee, then 
there may be occasion for us to remark further 
npon the question, why, upon two distinct oc- 
casions, when the committee were absent, the 
gentleman felt it to be his bounden duty to un- 
dertake to undermine the confidence of the 
House and the country in the committee. 

Now I wish to call the attention of the House 
distinctly to the motives which prompted the 
attack of Monday last. When the House and 
the country come to know, as the committee 
knows, what prompted this attack, they will 
appreciate it quite as well as the committee 
does. The committee encountered no such 
opposition from the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania, the chairman of the Committee of 
Ways and Means, in the early stages of their 
investigation. It was only when the committee, 
in the way of its duty, came to throw itself be- 
tween the Treasury of the United States and a 
private speculation in which one Simon Stevens 
was interested, and through which $90,000 was 
to be taken out of the Treasury of the United 
States, without a dollar of consideration, in the 
simple^ale and repurchase of five thousand arms 
by the United States, that the committee en- 
countered the opposition of the chairman of 
the Committee of Ways and Means. It first 
manifested itself in delaying the appropriation 
to pay the expenses of the committee, and it 
then brought out a speech in the House ridi- 
culing the committee and the committee's efforts 
to rescue the Treasury from the vampires that 
had seized upon it and the harpies that hung 
around and h6vered over it. And last of 
all, it culminated in an attack last Monday on 
the integrity and character of the committee, 
and that, too, after the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania had been duly notified that every member 
of the committee was absent and could not re- 
ply. The. amendment offered by him to the 
second resolution looks to the same end. Sir, 
if that fact had gone forth with his charge, the 
committee would have been content to have put 
themselves with it on their country and to have 
waited for the verdict. 

Sir, I am not permitted to overlook also the 
connection of others in this matter. Although 
I had not the privilege of being present during 
the fore part of this week, when this scene 
transpired, I am informed that a distinguished 
ex-functionary of the Government was here in 
this House as the generalissimo on that occa- 
sion. I am informed that subsequently he ap- 



peared at the seat of the distinguished member 
from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stkvens,] and con- 
gratulated him on the signal success of his 
achievement over the committee in their ab- 
sence, and that he conferred with the lieuten- 
ant in that attack, [Mr. Kelley,] and with my 
other distinguished friend from Pennsylvania, 
[Mr. MooRHEAD,] who feels courage enough, 
and is sufficiently prompted by a sense of duty, 
to vote for the discharge of the committ^. 
Sir, I had hoped not to be compelled to allude 
to any one else in connection with this matter ; 
but justice to the committee requires me to 
call attention to these singular coincidences. 

That is not all. The committee has had 
fair notice served upon it by this distinguished 
ex-Secretary that its members are to hear from 
him elsewhere. Why, sir, the accmation which 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kel- 
ley] made on the committee a few weeks ago 
was published as an advertisement in the news- 
paper in my present district, in the vain. at- 
tempt to make the people of my district believe 
that I was not an honest man. Of course the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania did not pay ^r 
that advertisement. [Laughter.] Of course 
it could not be the distinguished Secretary, who 
had served' notice on every member of the 
committee that he would be laid out in his own 
district at the next election. I know not who 
paid for the advertisement, nor do I care. No 
man who was here at the last session of the 
last Congress can forget how the distinguished 
chairman of the Committee of Ways and 
Means made it public that he had represented 
to President Lincoln the true character of that 
distinguished individual and the danger of 
taking him into his Cabinet; how gentlemen 
from Pennsylvania protested in writing to Pres- 
ident Lincoln against taking him into the Cab- 
inet; and yet we find how, one by oue,*they 
were, some of them at least, brought up before 
President Lincoln, on their knees, and made to 
retract it all. 

A Member. Not all of them. 

Mr. DAWES. "Not all." The exceptions 
were not as many as were necessary to save 
Sodom. [Laughter.] I am happy to say, Mr. 
Speaker, that altho«gh I have been compelled 
to speak thus of gentlemen from Pennsylvania, 
I do not reflect on Pennsylvania herself. I 
only speak of the power of that distinguished 
ex-Secretary over individual men. I am happy 
to know that Pennsylvania is true when she is 



11 



herself, and that she is herself on this floor as 
well as elsewhere. 

Mr. Mcknight. Will my friend from Mas- 
sachusetts yield to me a moment? 

Mr. DAWES. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Mcknight I desire to say, as the 
gentleman has not particularized members of 
the Pennsylvania delegation, that, so far as I 
am concerned, I am one of the members from 
Pennsylvania who protested to President Lin- 
coln apjainst the admission of Mr. Cameron into 
the Cabinet, and that I never withdrew nor 
qualified that protest. ' 

Mr. MOORHEA.D. As my colleague has 
taken occasion to set himself right, I desire to 
say that I recommended the appointment of 
General Cameron to the Cabinet, that I worked 
heartily to accomplish it, and that I am here 
ready to stand by it. I believe that it was a 
good appointment, and that it represented the 
people of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. DAWES. I desire to say, in reply to 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania, that the 
newspapers did not leave us in ignorance at 
th^'time— — 

[Here the hammer fell.] 

Mr. KELLEY obtained the floor. 

Mr. KELLOGG, of Michigan. I hope the gen- 
tleman's time will be extended. [Cries of "Go 
on."] 

Mr. ROSCOE CONKLUSTG. I object. 

Mr. KELLEY. I wish it understood that I 
did not object ; but I should like to have the 
floor when the gentleman is done, without his 
time being taken out of mine. 

Mr. DAWES. I thought there was a tacit ac- 
quiescence on the part of the House that if I 
j-ielded the floor to gentlemen my time would be 
extended. 

The SPEAKER. Does the gentleman from 
New York withdraw his objection ? 

Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. I decline to with- 
draw it. I have listened as long as I desire to 
listen to refuting an attack which no one has 
ever made on the committee. 

Mr. KELLEY. I hope the gentleman from 
New York will withdraw his objection. 

Mr. DAWES. Allow me to say that, when I 
was asked to yield to other gentlemen, I under- 
stood the House to assent to my proposition, that 
my time should be extended. I regret that the 
gentleman from New York did not object at that 
time, as 1 would then have saved my own time. 

Mr. ROSGOE CONKLLVG. I raise the point 
of order that the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
is entitled to the floor, and must either occupy 
it or yield it. The time of tire gentleman from 
Massachusetts having expired, it is not in order 
for him to pursue this discussion. 

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania cannot yield the floor if objection be 
made-. 



Mr. KELLEY. I am willing to yield the floor, 
but not the time, and therefore I will proceed. 

]\[r. ROSCOE GONKLING. I object to that. 

The SPEAKER. The gentleman cannot yield 
except unconditionallyr 

At the close of Mr. Kelley's remarks Mr. 
Dawes obtained the floor, and concluded as fol- 
Jows : 

I do not desire to be turned aside from my 
original purpose in this discussion by any ques- 
tion as to the propriety of the purchases of 
Alexander Cummingsin April of last year, or 
the propriety of giving, in the midst of a snow- 
storm, straw hats and linen pantaloons to the 
shivering soldiers of Maine and Massachusetts, 
on their way to defend the capitai I do not 
desire to enter into that question, for I arose 
to finish the few remarks I designed tg make 
when I opened this discussion. 

But before going further, I ask the pardon 
of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Roscoe 
Conkling] for wounding his feelings so seri- 
ously in the poor attempt I made at pleasantry 
when appre nating the beauties of his remarks. 
I found them a gem in such strange settings 
that I was incautiously led to make the remarks 
I did. I was innocent of any design to wound 
him. 

One complaint of the gentleman from -Penn- 
sylvania, the chairman of the Committee of 
Ways and Means, [Mr. Stevens,] and in re- 
ference to which nothing but the rule of the 
House prevented him from moving to discharge 
the committee, was that the committee were 
expending the people's money. Now, I wish 
to ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania if he 
has any idea what this committee has cost, over 
and above what they have saved to the Treas- 
ury thus far ? . I want to know whether he had 
the slightest idea about that when he charged 
upon the committee such expenditure and such 
extravagance as to justify him in moving to 
discharge them from further duty, and that, too, 
in their absence ? 

But before I go further, and lest I forget it, 
it is due to the Pennsylvania delegation in the 
House that I should be more explicit upon the 
matter to ^thich I have before alluded. I spoke 
of the great influence of an ex-Secretary over 
men, and I spoke of the attempt upon his part 
to accomplish a certain end in that way. I 
alluded, what seemed to be well knoww as a 
fact, to his influence upon distinguished gentle- 
men from Pennsylvania, in and about and out 
of the laait Congress. I think, upon the testi. 
mony I have received here since I made that 



/ 



12 



remark, that I ought to say that none of those 
gentlemen, members of the present House at 
least, were induced by any consideration to 
withdraw the protest they filed with the Presi- 
dent. I thiuk there is no doubt of the fact, 
however. The newspaper publications announ- 
ced, and it was never contradicted, that many 
of the gentlemen who were induced to sign such 
a protest were also induced, by the exercise of 
that influence always attendant on great minds 
and great men over othess not so great, to with- 
draw that protest. 

But to return ; I was asking the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania about the expenses of this 
committee. ' The gentleman is before me, and 
as I have put the matter in the form of an in- 
terrogatory, I hope the gentleman will at some 
time indicate to the House his knowledge upon 
that subject. 

Mr. SfEVENS. What question does the 
gentleman put to me? 

Mr. DAWES. Whether the-gentleman is 
aware of- the expenses of that committee over 
and above what they have saved to Govern- 
ment? 

Mr. STEVEN'S made a reply which was not 
distinctly heard by the reporters, but the pur- 
port oT which was understood to be, that he 
hoped to have an opportunity hereafter to re- 
ply to the gentleman's remarks and interroga- 
tories. 

Mr. DAWES. I stated to the House on a 
former occasion that the committee had en- 
deavored to render its action as practical 
as possible, and whenever they had dis- 
covered what they thought to be a fraudu- 
lent or profligate contract, to lay it before the 
proper Departrnent ; the Department co-ope- 
rating with the committee in correcting abuses. 
Arithmetic shows that the committee had 
brought back — when this report was made— in 
dollars and cents, into the Treasury, just about 
the amount of their current expenses; and 
they have saved, in contracts, amounts which 
would seem almost fabulous in other times. I 
may be permitted to allude to a single contract 
which was made last September — made by the 
then Secretary of War himself, Mr. Cameron — 
its terms not known at the Ordnance Bureau 
until three days before he resigned, for the pur- 
chase of one hundred and fifty thousand mus- 
kets abroad, to be inspected abroad by a man 
sent out there by the War Department, and 
whose expenses were to be borne by the parties 
selling the arms, and under such circumstances 



that the man who was sent out by the party 
who had made this contract with the Secretary 
of War, went out under an assumed name ; a 
brother-in-law of a distinguished officer of a 
Pennsylvania railroad. Brothers-in-law, I may 
be permitted to say, are very fortunate in these 
times, and if I ever begin life again I will take 
care to be somebody's brother-in-law. [Laugh- 
ter.] I say I may be permitted to refer to such 
a contract, and when this committee came "to. 
investigate it, the parties came straightway 
here before the commission on ordnance and 
ordnance stores, now sitting in this citf, and 
consented to a settlement of it upon terms by 
which $1,300,000 have been saved to the Gov- 
ernment in a single contract. That contract, I 
say, was made by the then Secretary of War him- 
self, and, as appears by the document I have 
before me, its terms were not known to the Ord- 
nance Bureau until the 10th day of January 
last, three days before the Secretary resigned. 

In connection with this statement, I send up 
to the Clerk a document, and ask him to read 
what I have marked. It is a document ad- 
dressed to the Senate of the United States fcy 
the then Secretary of War. It bears date the 
loth day of January last, two days after he had 
resigned, while he was then acting Secretary 
of War, and while -his nomination as minister 
to Russia was pending in the Senate, and where 
it encountered opposition because of certain 
statements which I happened to make here 
upon this floor upon the day he resigned, about 
contracts made in the War Office. 

The Clerk read as follows : 

" In the mean time I take occasion to state that 
I have, mj-self, not made a single contract for 
any purpose whatever ; having always iuter- 
])reted the laws of Congress as contemplating 
that the heads of bureaus, who are experienced 
and able officers of the regular army, shall make 
all contracts for supplies for the branches of the- 
service under their charge respectively. 

" So far, I have uot found any occasion to in- 
terfere with them in the discharge of this portion 
of their responsible duties. 

" I have the honor to be, very respectfully, 
your obedient servant, SIMON CAMKRON, 
" Secretary of M'ar. 

" Hon. II. Hamlin, 
" President of the Senate of the United States." 

Mr. DAWES. I have stated thar, in this 
solemn declaration, signed by the then Secreta- 
ry ©f War, and addressed to the Senate when 
his nomination was pending, and when the ac- 
cusation .was made against him that he had 
made contracts for the purchase of arms, as 
stated by me upon this floor, to the amoubt of 



13 



one million ninety-six thousand muskets, he 
stated deliberately that he never made a con- 
tract, when the book I have before me, which 
is Executive Document No. 67, containing all 
the contracts made for arms by the War De- 
partment, recapitulates and sums up the whole 
matter in these words : 

3Iuske(s and Rifles. 
Contracts by order of Secretary of War, 1,836,900 
Clontracts by the Chief of Ordnance... 64,400 
Contracts by order of Major General 

Fremont 

Contracts by order of Major P. V. 

Hagner 



1,000 



1,500 



1,903,800 
This document, in the face of the solemn 
declaration of the then Secretary of War that 
he had never made one of these contracts, re- 
Viaals contracts made by him, and by his order, 
to the amount of one million eight hundred and 
thirty six thousand nine hundred muskets and 
rifies,and that upon the very day he made this 
statement — the 15th day of January, two days 
after he had resigned, and while he was acting 
Secretary of War, and while his nomination 
was pending in the Senate — he put his hand 
to a contract for swOrds and sabres to an un- 
limited amount — all that the parties, resident 
in Philadelphia, could furnish in six months ; 
and this, too, against the protest of the Chief 
of Ordnance, now before me in print. It was 
a contract that had expired, or was about to 
expire, by its limitation, and which the Chief of 
Ordnance refused to extend, and gave this 
reason for not doing so, addressed to the Sec- 
retary of War : 

"As regards the extension, I have to state that 
an arrangement has already been made R>r ob- 
tiiining on prospective deliveries, one hundred 
and twenty-one thousand seven hundred and 
five swords and sabres; and the unlimited order 
to Messrs. Horstman was given, only because of 
short time to the deliveries of sabres of their 
own manufacture. I do not think an extension 
of the order fs necessary or ajivisable. 
" Respectfully, &c., 

"JAS. W. RIPLEY, 

"Jiriffadier General. 
"Hon. SiMO.v Cameron, 

" Secretary of War.^' 

Beneath this is the extension of that contract 
by order of the Secretary of War, for four 
months ; and still beneath that, on the 15th 
day of January, are these words : 

Jakuahy 16, 1862. 
This order is extended for si-^c months from 
the termination of the time mentioned above. 
SIMON CAMERON; 
Secretary of War. 



Now, sir, it was this public statement, of his, 
upon his responsibility as an officer of the 
Government, to which I have referred, that in- 
duced a distinguished Senator and colleague • 
of mine, noble and generous-hearted, who 
would do no man any wrong, and who believes 
that all men tell the truth, to urge, after having 
moved, the unanimous confirmation of this 
man, whose name was then before the Senate, 
and to state, in words as kind towards me, his 
colleague in this House, as he was capable of 
using, that he had the authority of this man, 
Si!mon Cameron, for stating that I was alto- 
gether mistaken when I said that .these con- 
tracts had been made. 

Sir, the distinguished gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania, the chairman of the Committee of 
Ways and Means, s&ysfalsiis inuno,falsus in 
omnibus. I wish to quote these two thingis to- 
gether, and let my friend from Pennsylvania 
answer them in the light of the principle which 
he has laid down. 

I submit, then, that the charge of expending 
the public money as a reason why this com- 
mittee should be discharged comes with ill grace 
from the quarter from whence it comes. Why, 
sir, who does not know, what all the papers sta- 
ted, that political feuds were healed by horse 
contracts, and that the healing of them was cele- 
brated by a great feast ? I have once alluded 
to it myself. I am able now to state more par- 
ticularly the details of the aflfair. It took four 
horse contracts, each for one thousand horses, 
to settle those old political feuds, and every one 
of those contracts cost the Gpvernment $100,000 
— $400,000 in four horse contracts ; and let me 
tell you, Mr. Speaker, that some of them were 
in men's names who did not know of it until 
the contracts were made. It does not need to 
be told togentlemen who know so much about 
the wav things are done as we do here in this 
House, why it is and for whose benefit it is that 
large contracts aretr.ade in men's names with- 
out their knowing anything about it. My dis- 
tinguished friend from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Ste- 
vens,] who, in the discharge of what appeared 
to be a high duty, protested against such a 
man as' Simon Cameron going into the Cabi- 
net, the papers say, graced that feast with his 
presence, and that these persons were, over 
this entertainment, celebrating the restoration 
of harmony among old political antagonists, 
and some of them certainly knew the consider- 
aticn. It seems to me that the $400,000 should 
be saved to the Treasury somehow or other. 



14 



It is a poor expenditure of the public money 
just at this time when it is used for no better 
purpose than to heal political feuds. These 
gentlemen enjoyed themselves, the papers told 
us. 

Mr. STEVENS. The gentleman will allow 
me to ask him. a question, as I do not very well 
understand his allusion. I suppose he is re- 
ferring to something not yet published ; or is it 
to anything that has been published ? 

Mr. DAWES. I stated that it was published 
in all the papers. 

Mr. STEVENS. In his remarks about the 
horse contracts, does the gentleman refer to 
anything contained in the report of the com- 
mittee ? 

Mr. D AWES. No, sir ; not to anything pub- 
lished in the report. I am speaking now of 
what is known to everybody. It did not take 
even the poor Van Wyck committee to find it 
out. [Laughter.] The parties fell out over one 
of these arrangements and toldot it ; and I have 
only to say that at that particular time there 
was, according to the newspapers, great har- 
mony among these men. I do not know wheth- 
er the gentleman from Pennsylvania on my 
left [Mr. Moorhead] was there or not. 

Mr.'MOORHEAD. I would like to know 
why the gentleman refers to me. I do not wish 
the gentleman from Massachusetts, and I will 
not permit him or any other gentleman, to put 
me in a false position. I want to know why 
he refers to me. 

Mr. DAWES. I did not know the gentle- 
man was there, and therefore I would not say 
that he was there. 

Mr. MOORHEAD. Then why refer to me 
at all ? What reason have you to suppose that 
I was there ? 

Mr. DAWES. Because the gentleman has 
avowed himself at this moment, and under all 
the lights of the present day, an ardent advo- 
cate and admirer of the man whose character, 
public and official, I have been commenting 
upon, and I thought it was but natural he 
should be invited to such a feast. I hope he 
was not overlooked. [Laughter.] I have only 
to say that the papers described it as being a 
delightful occasion; but I remembered, and I 
think the country remembered, all about the 
antecedents of these parties, and put the inter- 
rogatories, " why, and what for, and what has 
it cost?'' I wonder they did not sing, as they 
closed, those lines of the poei appropriate to 
each of them : 



" I know not, I care not, if guilt's in thy heart; 
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art." 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. Speaker, I have a word or two to say 
upon the suggestion of the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens,] that he would 
move to discharge the committee if it were only 
in order. The gentleman's duties in this House 
and the duties of the committee have been of 
a different description. I have no disposition 
to criticise his performance of his. I know the 
ability with which he discharges them. I know 
•very well what I encounter in attempting tore- 
ply to his attack upon the committee. I have 
only to say, that his labors and the labors of 
the committee are yet to be appreciated. When 
the thumb-screws of the tax bill which the com- 
mittee, of which he is the he.ad, originated and 
passed through the House from the necessities 
of the times, so nicely adjusted, shall begin to 
reach the bones of the poor, industrious, intel- 
ligent men of the country, and force from them 
so much of their hard earnings to replenish 
the Treasury of the nation, beggared, plunder- 
ed, and depleted as it has been during this 
war, then, I fancy, this report of ours will come 
to be read ; then, I fancy, if his constituents are 
as intelligent as mine are — and I have no doubt 
they are — they will ask him the question, and 
he will be compelled to answer it, "where is 
all this money gone ?" They will want to 
know what was the need of putting out such 
lavish and unjustifiable contracts — contracts 
at such enormous and extravagant rates 
that the owners of them are willing to discount 
what is estimated at $1,300,000 on a single 
contract, and then save two and a half per cent, 
commisson. They will ask the question, and 
the committee of which I am an humble mem- 
ber, which has struggled all this time, while the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania, impelled by the 
necessities of the. Government, has been rack- 
ing his ingenuity to contrive how to reach the 
last farthing that can be reached to replenish 
the Treasury — this committee which has been 
placing their feeble efforts between the plun- 
derers and the Treasury — are willing to abide 
that lirfne. They are willing to let this book 
be read by the side of the tax bill at any 
time, and more especially at that particular 
time when the clamps of the tax bill shall be 
brought round about the industry and resources 
of the country, and when my friend from Penn- 
sylvania will be turning the screw. If (he 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] 



15 



had made that •motion, and if the House had 
adopted it, as I have no doubt they would have 
done that day, the committee then would 
have hailed it as a glorious deliverance from 
a most unpleasant duty, which no one member 
of it had sought, but which no one felt himself 
at liberty to shrink from. 

I say to him, therefore, that if he will make 
a motion to discharge the committee, and will 
give me the liberty of asking for the yeas and 
nays on his motion, that is all I desire. I will 
say to him, as an honored and leading member 
of the party to which I belong, that I am cred- 
ited at home as being a sincere member of that 
party for principle's sake, and I am willing to 
do what within me lies to see the consumma- 
tion and final prevalence of those principles. 
Having devoted myself to them in the past, I 
am ready to do more for them ; but I tell him 
that when he asks this House to discharge a 
committee whose efforts are to put themselves 
and this House between the Treasury and the 
plunderers of it, while he busies himself with 
making a tax bill to wrench out of the hard 
earnings of the people money to supply tiie 
leaks in the Treasury, he must, and I must, and 
the party to which we belong must, answer the 
question why it is so. This book and the report 
of the evidence yet unpublished cannot be hid 
under, a bushel. 

The geuUeman must remember that in the 
first year of a Republican Administration, which 
came into power upon professions of reform 
and retrenchment, there is indubitable evidence 
abroad in the land that somebody has plundered 
the public Treasury well nigh in that single 
year as much as the entire current yearly ex- 
penses of the Government during that Admin- 
istration which the people hurled from power 
because of its corruption. Do not understand 
m-Q as saying that your friends and mine are 
alone responsible for this plunder, although we 
are in power and have the responsibility of the 
administrationof this Government. My friends 
on the committee of different politics from me 
will have the justice to say that the Republican 
party is not the only one that has participated 
in these plunders. I will not say on which 
party the greater amount of this plunder rests. 
And yet we have got to answer for them, and 
justly, unless we put forth every effort in our 
power to prevent them, and unless we call these 
men to a rigid and strict account. It will not 
be enough to say that we found that we had a 



committee who had made a mistake about a 
man's name ; that we found that a blunder had 
been made in printing a man's letter and the 
committee did not correct it; and that therefore 
we discharged that committee, and proclaimed 
to these plunderers that they might go about 
their work without let or hindrance. 

While it may be easily shovVn that this Re- 
publican party is not altogether responsible for 
plundering and profligacy, yet they cannot hold 
themselves guiltless before the country if they 
shrink from every effort, if they fail to sustain 
the hands and quicken the zeal of the men 
who have put their strength and their life for 
the past six months to the work ; even although 
they may have made a mistake, as doubtless 
thfy have many in this large book ; even al- 
though injustice to an individual may be, as 
probably it has- been, committed in some in-, 
stance ; unless they sustain a committee which 
has been devoting itself by day to this work, 
and riding by night upon the cars, finding, 
while they are busy at work, that arrows are 
sent after them from behind to undermine the 
confidence of the country in them. I say that 
this Republican party, to which I am as devo- 
ted as my friend, cannot hold itself guiltless if 
it shrink from the work. 

I hope the gentleman will take these words 
kindly from one whose political life, humble 
and unimportant as it is, is bound up in the 
principles of that party. He has all to sacrifice 
for those principles, but he is irreconcilably 
hostile here and everywhere to the thieving, 
the stealing, and the plundering that charac- 
terize the present time, in the concrete as well 
as in the abstract. Sir, I doubt i?ot that Alex- 
ander Cummings and those other men have 
lost confidence in this committee, and that in 
their opinion there is wonderful unanimity 
among all the public plunderers and their de- 
fenders throughout the country. T hope it is 
so. 1 should feel a distrust of the committee 
if I found that its course was agreeable to these 
men. The House and the country hold the 
committee responsible for the truth and justice 
of what they say, and the country, sir, holds 
you. and me and our friends responsible that 
we do nothing that shall tend to give the idea 
that we encouraged and countenanced this 
plunder. I proposed to speak plainly to my 
friends, whether they*will hear or whether they 
will forbeiir. "Faithful are the wounds of a 
friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." 



illSSl,.?'^ CONGRESS 



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